


Intro to Semantics and Advanced Navigating

by anemicaxolotl



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions, also i haven't even finished the series yet, i also don't know how boats work, i had an idea and it got away from me and I should have edited it but i thrive on chaos, setting is intentionally ambiguous, this is pretentious, uhhh i love these two that's it that's the message
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27046795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemicaxolotl/pseuds/anemicaxolotl
Summary: Abed really, really doesn’t want to break the spell of this moment: it’s an absolutely perfect frame, the final stirring scene in a heartbreaking film, one full of wasted opportunities and missed chances and also unspoken potential.But he’s not really seeing it that way. Above it all, he knows he’s here on this beach, and he’s living this moment, and if he calls out a name, there are endless possibilities for how this story unfolds, and not every scenario lands in his favor.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 12
Kudos: 103





	Intro to Semantics and Advanced Navigating

Abed is thinking semantics. Not really specifically, or intentionally. But he’s been batting around two phrases in his head all day: both clichés, but both appropriate, probably, given the circumstances, given everything that’s led him to this point. 

He thinks they’re both technically idioms. They follow the same five-word structure and are almost identical at face value, but couldn’t be further apart in meaning. Abed pictures the phrases scrolling up a movie screen, bright, looming, _Star Wars_ -style, then scratches that sequence, instead placing them in a Merriam-Webster format (pronunciation, part of speech). 

He thinks his taxi driver is talking to him, but he’s barely listening. He nods from the backseat and tilts his head toward the window, trying to capture each frame in his memory and also trying to be okay with knowing it might not be possible. Some things are more beautiful for being ephemeral. 

Not everything. 

*** 

Annie had begged to style him for the occasion, and it probably would have worked out fine if he’d said yes. But he ended up turning down her offer and looking to Jeff for advice, instead. He didn’t regret it.

He’s never felt less like himself, and yet, somehow, that’s perfectly alright. It’s something about the setting: Jeff had dressed him perfectly for the scene. The pale blue shorts, the white linen shirt unbuttoned down to his sternum, the boat shoes, even Jeff’s stupid aviators. His hair is a little longer than he used to keep it, almost curling, and it adds to the overall windswept appearance Jeff told him to go for. It feels like he’s playing a character, a little, but it’s comfortable. It is a _him_ he could get used to. It’s a _him_ he wants people to see. 

*** 

He thinks back to Greendale, to the lava, to the panic, to talks of clones and homing pigeons, to the sight of the _Childish Tycoon_ leading his best friend away from him. _The end of the world_. That’s what it felt like at the time. For a while, he was convinced that’s what it truly was. 

Even as time passed, even when he moved to LA, even as he grew up, made friends, adapted to his new life, shifted into a person he felt like others could be proud of, it always felt like something had been irreparably damaged that day. _The end of the world_. Was it possible to go on living through something like that? 

He’d done it, somehow. For over two years, he’d made it through whatever vaguely dystopian world he now inhabited. He thinks he’s done a pretty good job. Most days, he thinks he’s adequately convinced the people around him that he’s in the same genre as everyone else. 

Most days, it’s enough. 

***

His hands are shaking a little as he steps on to the beach. It’s quiet here, away from the packed tourist areas near the hotels and the center of the city. This beach is almost empty. 

Nearby there are softly painted bungalows, scattered like pastel candies along the road. Abed’s already dropped his bags off in one. He doesn’t know how he’ll ever thank LeVar for setting this up. He’d met Abed outside his own bungalow and handed him a key to the sky-blue one across the way. He’d helped Abed with his bags. He’d pointed him toward the beach with a smile and something like relief in his eyes. 

“Maybe now he’ll finally stop talking about you so much,” he had laughed. “Or maybe now it’ll only get worse, who knows.” 

*** 

There’s a blanket spread out not too far from where the waves are breaking gently over the shore. Abed can see a cooler, a towel, a guitar; a pair of flip-flops has been abandoned nearby. 

Someone is standing with his feet in the water, watching the way the sun glints off the waves like light off steel. His hair is longer. He’s got a beard. He’s wearing a pink patterned Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned, the wind tugging on the ends of it flirtatiously. His hands are in the pockets of his swim trunks. He’s deeper in thought than Abed’s ever seen him. 

Abed really, really doesn’t want to break the spell of this moment: it’s an absolutely perfect frame, the final stirring scene in a heartbreaking film, one full of wasted opportunities and missed chances and also unspoken potential. 

But he’s not really seeing it that way. Above it all, he knows he’s here on this beach, and he’s living this moment, and if he calls out a name, there are endless possibilities for how this story unfolds, and not every scenario lands in his favor. 

In the end he doesn’t need to be the one to break into the scene; the scene swells to include him. As if drawn to Abed, as if some unknowing force compels him, as if the wind itself is whispering clues into his ear, Troy turns around. 

Abed watches an impossible face journey play out. Troy is at first impassive, then shocked, then bewildered, then apprehensive, as if convincing himself he’s seeing a mirage. 

Then he’s smiling, pure, open, beautiful, more exuberant than Abed’s ever seen. It shakes him out of his trance. He steps forward, and then all at once they’re running. 

They slam together with such force that it knocks them to the ground, Troy laughing on his back as Abed kneels over him, touching his face and grinning. “ _T_ _roy_.”

“Buddy, what are you doing here?” Troy breathes out, his hands all over Abed’s shoulders, his back, like he can’t quite settle on where to land but knows he can’t let go. 

“I couldn’t stop missing you,” Abed finally says, his hands coming to rest on Troy’s chest. Troy swallows, and Abed knows that look, and he sits up quickly, because he wants to give Troy space if he’s going to cry. 

But Troy just follows him up, throwing his arms around his waist and pressing his face to Abed’s shirt as sobs begin to wrack his body. “I can’t believe you’re here.” 

They hold each other until the sun slips into the pocket of the horizon. 

*** 

There’s so much they can do. Troy wants to take him downtown, bring him to bars, feed him local food and sangria, take him dancing, play him the music he’s been writing, show him the boat, take him sightseeing, teach him paddle boarding and windsurfing, tell him a thousand stories, soak in the time they have together, live a thousand lives in the days they have before Abed has to leave. 

But once they make it back to Troy’s bungalow they can’t seem to pull apart long enough to think. They’ve been hugging nonstop since their first tackle on the beach, and now as Troy shows Abed around his tiny rooms, he keeps a hand on Abed’s elbow, a pinky linked to his, an arm around his waist, a leg pressed against his. Abed can’t stop staring at Troy, and he wonders if it might be weird, but Troy’s looking back at him with a blush and a softness that seems to whisper, _Okay_. It makes Abed’s head spin. 

“I still don’t know what you’re doing here,” Troy whispers when they finally sit down on the bed Troy’s been using. “I haven’t had WiFi in weeks...how did you even know I would be here?”

“I planned things out with LeVar two months ago,” Abed admits, staring at the hands in his lap, his own interlocked with Troy’s. “He said you were planning on stopping here for at least a week, so I had some leeway with planning my flight. The rest was sort of a guessing game until you guys had service again and I could get back in touch with him and make sure you were really here.” He reaches up to brush a finger over Troy’s beard, causing a shiver. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

“Uh, yeah, feeling’s mutual,” Troy laughs. 

Abed can’t believe how perfectly every step of this plan has gone so far. It’s beyond anything he could have scripted, more beautiful than any homage he could have planned, and it’s because it’s just him and Troy, back the way they always were, the way they always should be. And yet he can’t stop his hand from shaking where it rests against Troy’s face, can’t calm the incessant pounding of his heart. He breathes, and it’s shaky, and Troy notices.

“You okay, buddy?” 

***

 _The end of the world_ is how it felt when Troy left. Abed felt that ache like an open wound every day for two years. In spite of all his best efforts, despite all his progress, no matter how wonderful each day might have been, when he went to bed at night, the pain of missing Troy threatened to rend him apart. 

But there’s another idiom that seems to take the same shape as the first: _the ends of the Earth_ . Funny how they sound the same, _world_ and _Earth_ coiling around each other like mirror-image synonyms, _end_ meeting _ends_ like twin sides of one coin. 

But one expression meant the destruction of everything Abed knew and loved. And the other? 

*** 

“I don’t know if you know this, but we’re almost as far away from Greendale as humanly possible at this exact moment,” Abed says. 

Troy doesn’t react, like he knows there’s something else coming, and Abed sighs. 

“I don’t really have a plan for this,” he admits quietly. “No script. No homage. There are about a million references I could make if I wanted to but I think you deserve more than that.” 

He pauses and then looks up to meet Troy’s wonderstruck gaze. “I guess I’m here because I missed you and I wanted to let you know I would literally follow you to the ends of the Earth because I’m in love with you.” 

There are tears in Troy’s eyes now, and he’s desperately trying to blink them away. He exhales shakily before he speaks. “You know how many times I stood dramatically at the helm and gazed off into the distance so at least it would look cinematic and cool when I was crying about how much I miss you?” 

Abed blinks, and then he’s smiling gently. “I hope it was a lot,” he says quietly. 

Troy leans forward and presses his lips to Abed’s, and Abed doesn’t care how long the rest of Troy’s trip takes, because he knows the memory of a kiss like this will carry him over until the next time he can see Troy again, because there hasn’t been a more perfect moment in any movie Abed can think of, and if there is, he doesn’t want to know about it. 

This one is his. 

*** 

Troy takes Abed out on the _Childish Tycoon_ the next morning, early, after they’ve untangled themselves from the sheets and showered together and slipped on each other’s clothes. Troy can’t stop smiling at the way Abed looks in his Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned, the way Troy wore it, the wind tugging it back and forth like curtains over his chest. He looks incredible, hair windswept and cheeks slightly flushed and eyes bright and smile incandescent. 

Troy feels like he’s floating.

They’re alone on the water when the sun begins to rise behind them, setting the ocean ablaze with the light of a million gleaming crystals. With the city behind them and the horizon out of reach, it truly feels like the whole world belongs to them alone, just the way it feels to have the wind flecking their skin with sprays of salt water, to have Abed’s arm looped around Troy’s shoulder and his lips against Troy’s ear, whispering something beautiful and true. 

In this shot, the audience can’t hear what’s being said. That’s fine. It’s not for them.

*** 

Troy knows there’s probably never been an episode of _Inspector Spacetime_ where anyone promises anyone that they’ll follow them to the ends of the Earth. They’ve got all of time and space at their disposal, after all. _The ends of the Earth_ isn’t on their scale. 

That’s something he and Abed get to keep for themselves. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm only on season 3 of Community (my first time ever watching it all the way through), but because I love to suffer I already know some of the Big Stuff that comes later and I couldn't get this idea out of my head. I actually have no idea what the timeframe is for later seasons so apologies if my vague time references are inaccurate. This came from an idea I had about phrases that sound the same but mean very different things, loosely based on the song "Ends of the Earth" by Lord Huron (bc again I love to suffer I guess even though I'm nowhere near season 6). It didn't all come together exactly how I wanted it to but uhhh I love this pairing and I'm impatient and really wanted to post this even though it's far from perfect lol. Thanks for reading!


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